WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Macgregor was commenting on the publication earlier on Wednesday of an official report from Sir John Chilcot devoted to United Kingdom’s role in the 2003 Iraq war. The inquiry came to the conclusion that the UK decision to join the Iraq war was taken on the basis of flawed intelligence data and assessments.
"Brexit will combine with the last 15 years of failed US interventions in the Middle East to resurrect Harold Macmillan's wise policy of maintaining London's alliance with Washington without necessarily joining Washington's self-defeating neocon[ neoconservative] crusades in the future," Macgregor said on Wednesday.
Macmillan, United Kingdom’s prime minister from 1957 to 1963, refused to commit any British forces to support the growing US military intervention in South Vietnam, as did his successor, Harold Wilson, prime minister from 1964 to 1970, Macgregor recalled.
Wilson too "wisely declined to join Washington's intervention in South Vietnam, another intervention predicated on a lie; an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin [in August 1964] that never occurred as reported," he stated.
"I have just listened to Tony Blair defend his unconditional support for Dubya [Bush]’s stupidity. The only thing Blair has done is reveal how deceitful and irresponsible he was," Macgregor, combat hero of the 1991 Iraq war, noted.
The Chilcot report confirmed that the United Kingdom’s decision to join the war in Iraq was based on false intelligence provided by Bush’s administration, Macgregor added.
The long-term effect of the report was likely to make future UK leaders far more reluctant and cautious to yield to Washington pressures to follow the United States into more military interventions, Macgregor concluded.
Doug Macgregor holds a doctoral degree in international relations from the US Military Academy at West Point. He commanded in the Battle of 73 Easting, a decisive tank fight during the 1991 Gulf War.
